City records show that last week, Parkland commissioners authorized school zone speed camera programs to curb what officials say is “rampant” speeding outside schools.
The commission’s vote to legalize the technology passed at their Aug. 14 meeting paved the way for installing cameras to detect school zone speeding violations above 10 miles per hour.
According to city records, signage informing drivers of the speed zone cameras and their locations would also be required.
Parkland Mayor Rich Walker said on Aug. 14 that implementing school speed zone camera systems was not imminent.
“This is an ordinance so that, if we decide in the future to implement the speed radars, we’ll have that as an ordinance,” Walker said. “We’re not [currently] implementing any speed detection systems; we’re just implementing an ordinance that will allow us to do that in the future if we choose.”
The commission’s speed camera ordinance said it found “speed violations in school zones present a real public health and safety hazard, particularly for children who are arriving at or departing from school or who are traversing a school campus during the school day and … speed violations in school zones within the city are rampant.”
As evidence, commissioners cited data from city school zone speed studies presented at their annual Strategic Planning Workshop in April and a Sept. 12 commission meeting.
The studies, conducted at each of the seven schools and eleven school zones in Parkland, found there were 15,957 speeding violations on Jan. 8, 11,690 on Jan. 31, 12,299 on Feb. 1, and 7,324 on Feb. 20, according to city records.
Violations were recorded when motorists drove at least 11 miles per hour over the designated speed limit within the eleven school zones, the records state.
“The City Commission determined that all eleven school zones within the City constitute a heightened safety risk that warrants additional enforcement measures, including placement, installation, and operation of speed detection systems at such school zones,” the ordinance states.
The revised city law empowers the city manager to implement the anti-speeding systems since enforcing speed limits in school zones with police alone can be difficult, according to the ordinance.
“In the time a law enforcement officer has stopped and cited a speeding driver, other motorists can commit speeding violations and escape citation,” the ordinance states.
The Florida Legislature last year passed a law signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis that allows cities to enforce school zone speed limits by using speed detection systems.
The law defines that technology as portable or fixed automated systems that detect a vehicle’s speed using radar and take a photograph or video of a vehicle’s rear at the time of the violation.
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